DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Dispatches) — Two oil tankers
recently seized by Iran are anchored off the coast of one of its key port cities on the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the Associated Press reported on Sunday.
The agency said it had analyzed satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC which showed the Advantage Sweet and the Niovi being just south of Bandar Abbas near a naval base in the port city in Iran’s Hormozgan province Saturday.
Iran seized the Marshall Islands-flagged Advantage Sweet, staffed by 23 Indians and one Russian, on April 27 as it traveled in the Gulf of Oman. Tehran said the vessel had struck another ship.
The Advantage Sweet carried Kuwaiti crude oil for American energy firm Chevron Corp. of San Ramon, California, at the time of its capture. And its seizure comes as another tanker believed to be carrying Iranian crude disappeared from anchorage off Singapore a year after being identified as trying to evade illegal U.S. sanctions.
The Financial Times, as well as the maritime intelligence firm Ambrey, both have reported that ship named Suez Rajan was seized by order of American authorities.
Satellite images showed a second ship, the Niovi, a Panama-flagged tanker, which was seized by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps on Wednesday as it left a dry dock in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, bound for Fujairah on the UAE’s eastern coast.